


IOU

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2009 [22]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Cracky, F/M, Highschool era, magic shenanigans, old fic, silly thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 09:12:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5122712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander isn't the only one not allowed to read out loud in front of the books.</p>
            </blockquote>





	IOU

**Author's Note:**

> Beriaearwen requested Buffy, the Vampire Slayer/Supernatural, Buffy/Dean, _”Dean Winchester, what have we told you about reading out loud in front of the books?” – First sentence._ \- I know that’s not the whole sentence, but that was simply too complicated for my little brain. Couldn’t do it. But I hope you like this, still.
> 
> 2009 repost.

+

“Dean Winchester, what have we told you about reading out loud in front of the books?” Buffy yells, ducking and nimbly rolling under a table to escape being bludgeoned.

“Sorry?” Dean hedges and throws himself flat on his stomach to avoid getting hit in the head.

The slayer jumps back to her feet and takes a running leap over the librarian’s desk, crouching down for better cover. 

“ _Sorry is not good enough_!”

Dean follows, narrowly avoiding having his arm broken by a ten pound encyclopedia, landing next to her, far less gracefully than she did. “It was an accident.”

Buffy glares at him before risking a look over the desk. Nothing’s moving. Apparently, the enemy has lost track of them for the moment. Small blessings and all that.

She slumps next to her sometimes boyfriend, hissing furiously, “Spilling coffee over my homework is an accident. Losing your car keys is an accident. Reading an ancient animation spell out loud in the presence of hundreds magically sensitive books is _not_ an accident.”

He flings up his arms, defensively, “How the hell was I supposed to know it would animate the books? Or that they’d try to kill us?” He stops, cocks his head to the side for a moment, then asks, “Why are they trying to kill us anyway?”

“Dunno. Why don’t you just go over there and look in the book?” she snarks, looking at him as if she’d like nothing better than for him to do exactly that. 

Whatever he’s about to retort is stopped by the dull thud of something heavy crashing into the desk. He stifles a very manly chuckle. This puts a whole new spin on ‘death by research’. Usually when he uses the phrase, he’s talking about boredom. Today? Not so much.

“Split?” he suggests. “You head for the doors and I…”

“For the stacks?” she finishes the suggestion. “Do you have any idea how many books are up there?” To emphasize her point, she smacks him right where _The Lexicon of Lesser Demons_ hit him, leaving a nice dent in his hard skull. Ouch. 

He rubs the tender spot with a grimace as the blonde by his side states the obvious. “We need a real plan.”

“Set them on fire?”

“I’d rather die by book than by Giles and when he comes in here in the morning and finds out we’ve burned all his priceless ancient books, he _will_ kill us. Slowly.”

Probably. For a stuffy old man, the watcher’s kinda vicious. Even Dean respects him and Dean doesn’t respect too many people. They need a better plan. Preferably one that involves solving this little dilemma without destruction of property.

He leans around the side of the desk, peering out cautiously and almost gets his head taken off by a guide to light magic rituals. He drops and avoids the projectile book before taking a look around. Hundreds of books are swarming, hovering or circling the room, almost a solid wall of them. All of them seeming to wait for something. 

For them, probably. If he gets out of here alive, he’s never touching another book again. Then he sees it. Flat on the table, right where he left it, perfectly normal, the book he found the spell in. It’s still. Lifeless. The way books _should_ be.

He pulls his head back to safety and says, “We need to get to the book I read from.” 

Buffy copies his move from seconds before, peeking around their hiding place toward the table they sat at when the library literally went to hell. She pulls back wide-eyed and informs him, strangely calm, “We’re dead.”

“Yup.”

“Really dead.”

“Yup.”

“Oh, the bruises I’ll have.” She shudders and he grimaces, already feeling a few dozen blackish bruises blooming all over his body from being hit by hard, heavy, old books. 

She risks another look and then says, “Go for the book and meet in the cage? It’s mostly empty and it should keep the bulk of them out.”

Locking themselves into a cage to avoid getting killed by books. Sam will never, ever let him live that down. Ever. 

Still, it’s better than waiting here for sadistic reading material to find and then bludgeon them to death. Marginally. 

“Kay. On three?”

Buffy nods and gets her feet under her, obviously planning to go the way she came, across the desk.

“One.”

“Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah, Princess?” He interrupts his countdown to look at her questioningly. 

She grins, open and sunny. “You owe me dinner.”

“Tell you what,” he offers, “We survive this and you promise to never tell Sam about it, I’ll even spring for dessert.” 

Which is a great sacrifice on his part, because the tiny girl next to him easily eats her own weight in chocolate cake when the mood strikes her. 

She mock contemplates the offer then nods. “Deal,” she says and vaults over the desk, not bothering to wait for three.

He follows, cursing and grinning despite himself.

+


End file.
